Because of the state of the world, I decided I needed a bar cart. Ok, that’s not actually true. I actually decided I needed a bar cart because my friend Amy has an awesome bar cart and I was super jealous and also because I was sick of storing my booze in a broom closet. I’d been looking for one that would meet my needs1 for a while and finally found one that I liked, and then it went on sale for 50% off and so it was totally a sign that I needed to buy it.

Naturally, the kitties were very eager to help me build it:

Watson says, “My claws don’t count as a “sharp” instrument, do they?”

Here are the kitties doing a thorough inspection to make sure all the parts were shipped to us:

It was a little complicated to put together – this is clearly not an IKEA piece, but hopefully that means it will actually last a long time! Thankfully, Scott came over to put it together with me!

And here it is in all its splendour:

The part at the bottom fits my wine collection as well as some short bottles of booze, like Cointreau and Chambord. The cart doesn’t actually even fit all my booze – well, it would if I put some bottles on the top, but I want to make sure that the cats don’t plan to go up there (so far, they haven’t). For the moment, my lesser used boozes are on the top shelf of my broom closest and the other shelves of the broom closest can now store other stuff. Hooray!

To celebrate, some wine may have been enjoyed:

Translate: one where I am reasonably confident the cats will not knock over all the bottles. Not that my cats knock things over very often (certainly they break stuff much less often than I do), but I feel like if they were to knock anything over, I wouldn’t want it to be bottles of booze. [↩]

Yesterday was Bethmas. Apparently I was so busy preparing and then celebrating that I never even gave you the usual Bethmas Eve greeting1. But now I’m here to give you a recap.

I decided that, since my industry project paper – i.e., the very last thing I needed to do for my MBA – was due on Jan 15, which is ever so close to Bethmas, that it only made sense to hand my paper in early and throw a big bash to celebrate both my birthday and the completion of my MBA2! I handed my paper in on Thursday, crossed my fingers that my prof wouldn’t ask for any revisions3, and then threw a party.

Because I am a Snow, I made tonnes of food because that is what Snows do when they throw a party. There was chili chicken4, mushroom puffs5, potatoes wrapped in bacon6, spinach dip, guacamole deviled eggs, 3 bean salad, chips7 and, for dessert, mocha ganache cupcakes with mascarpone cream. Suffice it to say that I spent pretty much all of the day prepping and was still decorating the cupcakes when the first guest arrived! I didn’t even have time to run to the store and had to make poor Kalev pick up ice and a loaf of sourdough for the spinach dip on his way over8.

I decided to make the house drinks related to the theme of having finished business school and this is what I came up with:

The Suffering Bastard is a drink I found on the Internet and, since I’ve been a suffering bastard for the past two years, I figured it was appropriate. However, it’s a gin-based drink and I don’t actually like gin, so I needed a second option that *I* would actually like to drink9. I came across a drink recipe that I liked, but the name didn’t fit my theme, so I rebranded it The Leveraged Synergy and off I went. I described the Leverage Synergy as a “spiked Shirley Temple“, but then when I went to make one for Kalev, he said, “Why aren’t you putting orange juice in it? Oh right, you’re from the east!” Apparently out west, a Shirley Temple has OJ in it, whereas where I grew up, it does not (and, I’ll add the Wikipedia article does not say anything about OJ in it. And Wikipedia is always right!). So I added a third house drink – The Value Add Leveraged Synergy, which was The Leveraged Synergy, but with orange juice added.

Also, my friends are so generous that, despite the fact that it felt like there was a drink being made every minute, I ended up with significantly more alcohol than I started with by the end of the night. So I probably will have to have another party now to use up all this booze!

Congratulations on your MBAby! Because really, giving birth to an MBA is much like having a baby. It’s painful, takes up all your time and attention, and you are sleep deprived for two years.

But honestly, the best part of my birthday was getting to spend it with so many good friends. There were friends from work and school and the other time I was in school and social media and various other people that I’ve met who ever remembers where and it was so much fun to hang out with them all for the evening. I’m a lucky girl.

And then, to put the cherry on the top of a wonderful night, after everyone left I checked my email and there was a message from my prof saying that he approved my industry project paper, no revisions needed, so I’m officially 100% done every single thing I need to do for my MBA! Best. Birthday Present. Ever!

And then today – a.k.a.Bething Day10 – I spent the day in practically non-stop exercise. First up was a 12 km run – it’s part of the running study that I’m in, but I had to do it on my own instead of with the group because I didn’t have quite enough time to do a 12 km run and then get to my early hockey game. The run was a bit of a slog, both because 12 km is a long distance to run on one’s own and because it was pouring out, so I was trying carefully not to step in too many of the deep puddles that seemed to be *everywhere*. But I got it done and had just enough time to get home, dry off, scarf down some oatmeal and then run off to my first of two hockey games. Due to the terrible flu that’s going around, we were a little bit short benched, having only 8 skaters11! But we played hard and we managed to pull out a 2-2 tie12 and I got an assist on one of our goals. And then I went home, scarfed down some leftovers, and headed back out to game #2. For this game we at least had 11 players – which seemed like a lot by comparison to game #1 – but it’s my higher division team, so the play is much faster. We had a great game – and managed a 1-0 victory! Now I’m sitting on my couch drinking tea and I fear that I might not be able to stand up again from the sheer exhaustion that has overtaken my entire body, but it’s the good kind of exhaustion. Overall, quite a successful Bething Day.

Oh yes, I also, because I’m a nerd, want to point out that last year I turned a square and this year I turned a prime number. I better make this a smashing good year, because next year’s age doesn’t have anything special about it, numerically speaking13. Given how this year is starting out, I’d have to say that I think I’ll be able to do that.

Which really wasn’t what I needed on a post-party day when I had to run 12 km and play two hockey games. [↩]

So, yeah, on top of having so few players, we also went to overtime. When we scored our second goal to tie the game near the end of the third period, the ref said to me, “You guys sure want to go to overtime.” And I replied, “Yup, we don’t feel like we’ve been getting enough ice time.” [↩]

So, remember how I mentioned that Devon has some mad bartending skills? Well, he picked up those skills when he lived in the UK, where he just so happened to be a bartender. And while being a bartender in the UK, he also picked up a love of Blavod, a jet black vodka that is made and sold there. Ever since he’s moved back, he’s been trying to find it here, but to no avail1. Until now. Because someone – who I think deserves the Girlfriend of the Year award – managed to track some down. In Port freaking Coquitlam!

The picture doesn’t really do it justice, because that could just be a black bottle. But trust me, it’s jet black vodka inside!

I was able to track this little puppy down because I have connections. By which I mean an Internet connection. And I used that Internet connection to email the Blavod people. And, as luck would have it, the Blavod people had quite recently struck a deal with a distributor in Vancouver and had even more recently just shipped some Blavod here! After some waiting for the Blavod to clear customs and then more waiting2 because the BC Liquor Store through which I put my order kept saying that it wasn’t in the distributor’s warehouse (even though the distributor was all “uh, yeah, it is!”), the distributor put me in touch with a little liquor store in PoCo that had the goods!

So tonight after work, I told Devon that we were going on a little drive because I had a surprise for him! Because, did I mention?, Girlfriend of the Year AND I love theatrics! And off we went to the Select Liquor in Port Coquitlam, with Devon having no idea where I was taking him3 where I walked up to the vodka section, and there it was! I’d like to give props to the Select Liquor store, who actually carries this stuff, because wtf BC Liquor Store, who took my order several weeks ago and continues to tell me that their system says that the distributor doesn’t have any Blavod in their warehouse when clearly it does? They only had about 9 bottles in stock though – and we bought 2 of them – so if you want to get some jet black vodka of your own, I suggest you go their posthaste!

Sadly, tonight is a Monday and I have a bucketload of studying to do this week4, so we couldn’t just dive into the bottles and start making drinks of awesomeness. So you’ll have to wait for a future blog posting where you actually get to see the Blavod in all it’s Blavodian goodness!

Well, other than that apparently you can buy it at some liquor store in Boston. You know, if you felt like driving 5,000+ km for a bottle of booze [↩]

And all through the waiting I kept saying to my sister “omg, when is the Blavod going to get heeeeerreeee??? Because I was dying to tell Devon that I’d found it, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise! [↩]

This blog posting is loooooong overdue. Remember way back in 2010 when I went to Ontario for Christmas? Well, one of the many, many awesome things that I did that I totally meant to blog about but then didn’t blog about because I was having way too much fun doing awesome things to be blogging was making chocolate vodka with Dr. Dan and Jeff. Seriously. Chocolate vodka. How does one make chocolate vodka, you ask? Well, basically, you melt 5 Mars bars and mix them with a bottle of vodka. And then you are supposed to chill it for 24 hours, but who can wait 24 hours because OH MY GOD CHOCOLATE VODKA?!!!

For the record, I was coming down with what turned out to be the longest-lasting cold I’d ever had on this night – I could actually feel myself getting sicker and weaker as I made dinner while Dr. Dan and Jeff made the vodka – so I’m actually much more happy about the chocolate vodka than this picture would lead you to believe.